For many years, shower curtains have had a clear utilitarian use, namely to contain sprays and splashes within the confines of the tub. However, bathers using showers have been frustrated by the fact that shower curtains tend to move inward against the bather while the shower is in use. This is an annoyance at best, and also possibly a safety hazard at worst, when considering the impediment to movement and vision that the shower curtain may cause when it moves close to the bather. This is particularly the case when a bather is elderly, handicapped, or young, and this becomes especially precarious on the slick walking surface of the wet tub in which the bather is standing. Often called the “shower-curtain effect”, this effect is thought to be caused by any one or more of the following principles:
Buoyancy theory: Also called Chimney effect or Stack effect, observes that warm air (from the hot shower) rises out over the shower curtain as cooler air (near the floor) pushes in under the curtain to replace the rising air. However, the shower-curtain effect persists when cold water is used, implying that this cannot be the only mechanism at work.
Bernoulli Effect theory: The most popular explanation given for the shower-curtain effect is the Bernoulli's principle. Bernoulli's principle states that an increase in velocity results in a decrease in pressure. This theory presumes that the water flowing out of a shower head causes the air through which the water moves to start flowing in the same direction as the water. This movement would be parallel to the plane of the shower curtain. If air is moving across the inside surface of the shower curtain, Bernoulli's principle says the air pressure there will drop. This would result in a pressure differential between the inside and outside, causing the curtain to move in an inward direction. This effect would be strongest when the gap between the bather and the curtain is smallest—resulting in the curtain clinging to the bather.
Horizontal vortex theory: A recent computer simulation of a typical bathroom found that none of the above theories pan out in their analysis, but instead found that the spray from the shower-head drives a horizontal vortex. This vortex has a low-pressure zone in the center, which then sucks the curtain in toward the bather.
Condensation: A hot shower will produce steam that condenses on the shower side of the curtain; lowering the pressure there. In a steady state the steam will be replaced by new steam delivered by the shower, but in reality the water temperature will fluctuate and lead to times when the net steam production is negative, resulting in movement of the shower curtain.
What is needed is a cost-effective, safe, and easy-to-implement device and method to prevent the motion and potentially hazardous action of the shower curtain. A number of devices in the prior art have been proposed to purportedly solve this problem, including vertical ribs or bars extending downwardly from the shower curtain rod, weights attached to the bottom edge of the shower curtain, and horizontal rods or lines extending between walls behind the shower curtain. While many of these devices are potentially effective, they can be expensive, difficult to install and often unsatisfactory in use.
It would be highly advantageous, therefore, to remedy the foregoing and other deficiencies inherent in the prior art.
An object of the present invention is to provide a shower curtain restrainer.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a shower curtain restrainer which is effective and easy to use.